


Around Derek in Eighty Photos

by FireWithFire



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bad Fashion Choices, Childhood, Derek Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, M/M, Old Childhood Photos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 11:12:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireWithFire/pseuds/FireWithFire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not exactly eighty. Not even close. But there are some mysteries from Derek's childhood the pack will find out. Embarassing mysteries.<br/>Really bad fashion choices included in the ticket, the ride may contain cuteness and fluff, snarky remarks and just a hint of bitterness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Around Derek in Eighty Photos

“Kids, do I have a surprise for you!”

 

“What is it, unca Peter, what is it?”, Erica said, jumping up and down in pretended excitement.

 

“If you take your pants off, I swear I’m going to burn you all over again,” Lydia said, dry heaving, finally taking her eyes off her nails.

 

“Girls, please look at the boys over here. All three of them look terrified, but at least they’re quiet. So please, shut up, and appreciate what I’ve found in the basement. Old photos!”, Peter said, sounding a bit like a TV game show host and picking up a big album covered in dust and soot.

 

The kids yelled. They would’ve never thought anything like this could ever be found, and there it was. A big load of Hales’ past, captured in polaroids.

 

“Fortunately, or not, depending how you look at it, that’s the only album I could find, but it’s filled with photos of--”

 

“Derek?”, Isaac guessed.

 

“Correct. It’s full of old photos of your alpha!”, Peter answered, going into the show host mode again.

 

Stiles was terrified, he knew exactly and in great detail what Derek would do to all of them if he knew what lied on the table. If he knew how easily his betas, his uncle and his boyfriend decided to just throw away his pride and dignity, looking for something to humiliate Derek with. Or blackmail him, whatever, both sounded pretty awesome right now.

 

Importantly, Peter opened the book.

 

*

 

“Oh, look, Derek’s about two here, taking a bath outside.”

 

“Oh, he was so cute!”, Lydia said. She almost said ‘what happened?’, but she bit her lips in time. After all, they all knew what happened - the fire, deaths, solitude. Kate, Peter, Gerard. Scott, Allison. Kanima.

 

“He was, wasn’t he.” Peter sounded almost proud, as if Derek was his own child.

 

“But he has such a tiny-- ouch!” Erica was silenced by Boyd’s elbow diving into her stomach. Even now, the guy had some sense of self -preservation and knew what would happen to Erica if that comment ever got completed, and managed to get to Derek.

 

“Come on, he was a kid,” Peter said warmly. “I’m sure your breasts weren’t always the size of two cantaloupes, Miss Bazongas.”

 

Lydia laughed, the only one to do so aloud (the rest of the kids snickered, at most) and, just in case, ran to hide behind Isaac. With Erica, you never knew. She may appreciate the sarcasm, she may scratch your eyes out.

 

This time, she decided to let it slide for the sake of more photos.

 

“Furthermore, I believe Derek’s a full grown man now, huh, Stiles?” Peter said, nudging him.

 

“What are you talking about?!”, Stiles, yelled, blushing like crazy and quickly looking away to avoid the eyes of... well, everyone.

“Walls were thin in the old mansion, wall were thin, honey.”

 

*

 

“Oh my sweet merciful Lord,” Erica moaned looking at another photo.

 

“Now that’s just cruel,” Isaac said. And, he still meant the picture, not the girl’s comment.

 

“Oh God,” Stiles sounded scared to the bone. “Wait, wait, I think the eighties called. Even they don’t want that shirt back.”

 

“Come on, it was high fashion then!”, Peter defended that hideous excuse for a piece of clothing Derek was sporting casually in a photo from about thirteen, maybe fifteen years ago. “We all had something like that. It was all the rage!”

 

“Please,” Lydia snorted. “You infected me, almost killed us all, murdered a bunch of people, came back to life and did a load of other crap, but seriously, admitting to liking _this_ counts as your most serious offence to this day.”

 

“You have no taste,” Peter said and moved on. “And, it wasn’t the eighties, it was the end of the nineties at most, maybe even past the Y2k.”

 

“Well, then something clearly turned out to be incompatible.”

 

*

 

“Oh, hey, what’s that?”

 

“That’s Derek with his favorite toy,” Peter explained. “It’s a big plush frog. He never went anywhere without in until he was about seven, or eight?”

 

“He dragged it to school?”, Isaac asked, surprised so much his eyes almost popped out of his skull.

 

“In his backpack, every single day,” Peter nodded.

 

“Aw, that’s so sweet!”, the girls squealed in unison, and looked at each other with pure hatred as if the other one stole the other’s line.

 

“No, that was dumb, he didn’t have enough space for his books and got notes from teachers every. Single. Day. His mother was furious!”

 

“Tell us about the frog, please!”, Lydia asked.

 

“Fine. He got it when he was a toddler, and carried it around ever since. See, here he’s about six, please notice the onesies with teddy bears, and look how fatigued that frog is already. I haven’t seen it in ages, what was its name...”

 

“Hoppity Fwog,” said Stiles, quiet until this very moment.

 

“How do _you_ know that?”

 

“Derek told me...”

 

“Willingly, or did you get him wolfsbane-high?”

 

“Willingly, can we move on _please_?”

 

“Sure. Well, I haven’t seen Hoppity Fwog in quite a long time, I think it burned in the fire--”

 

“No it didn’t,” Stiles interrupted, trying to mask the words with a coughing fit.

 

“What?”

 

“It didn’t, it’s in the closet upstairs, in a box within a box behind more boxes. Somehow, Derek managed to save it from the fire and he’s had it ever since. Ever since he was a toddler, actually. It’s his... lucky charm. He said it reminded him of his childhood, and please, _oh please_ , if any of you ever mentions what I just said to him he’s going to make Christmas ornaments of my insides and a goblet of my skull, so please, keep it to yourselves and never mention it, ever, okay?”

 

Nobody said anything. Nobody had any sarcastic comments to make.

 

*

 

 

“Hey, check that out!”, Lydia said, pointing at another photo. “The third one from the left! Is that who I think it is?”

 

“Oh, it is! It is!”, Erica squealed. “It’s Derek!”

 

“Yeah, he had a big part in that play,” Peter explained, straightening the photo. “He got killed and they ate him at the end.”

 

“That’s horrible,” Isaac gasped. “That was his big part?”

 

“Well, he had a lot of lines, up to the point they chopped his head off.”

 

“And, he was a turkey, and there were pilgrims, what did you expect? A Disney dance break? He had to die,” Stiles said in a fake grave voice, making them all laugh.

 

*

 

“Oh, that one I don’t remember. It must’ve been taken by Laura.”

 

They all leaned to get a closer look. They saw a photo of sleeping Derek, aged maybe fifteen, maybe sixteen. He was lying on his back, arms spread wide, mouth opened a little. But that was not at all disturbing, at least not remotely as much as the shirt he was wearing.

 

“Manowar,” Isaac read. “I’ve never heard of them.”

 

“Seriously?”, Boyd asked.

 

“Were you raised under a rock or something?”, Erica asked, too late realising that was probably the least sensitive thing she could ever say.

 

“They’re that cheesy metal band with crappy lyrics and, honestly, nothing to like,” Lydia explained, trying to cover up Erica’s tactlessness.

 

“Ah, right, Derek went to their concert with Laura in Los Angeles once. They returned quickly, furious like two demons from the heart of hell itself, because it was so loud they couldn’t stand it. Plus, they realized they hated their music. I didn’t know Derek bought their shirt.”

 

“That’s an unfortunate way to spend thirty five bucks,” Lydia commented.

 

“And, now it’s way too small, even for me,” Stiles said, before he could think.

 

“Did he carry out _all_ his stuff from the house the day before the fire?!”, Peter exclaimed, looking to the skies. “All I got was burns on my face, and he got all his childhood memories? So not fair.”

 

They all knew one thing. Peter was only partly joking.

 

*

 

“Whose birthday was that?”, Isaac asked, pointing to a picture of a boy and a girl holding something dark and round.

 

“Mine, actually. I’m not telling you which one.”

 

“That’s Derek, so that must be Laura, but what’s that big black... blob?”, Erica asked.

 

“That’s a cake, you blind kids!”

 

“That’s not a cake,” Stiles claimed. “Cakes are... more... shapely.”

 

“Are you trying to phrase in a way that won’t make you get in trouble in case Derek overhears us?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“That was a cake,” Peter agreed. “It was chocolate with cherries, they ran out of time so they didn’t make any frosting.”

 

“Why is Derek’s face covered in something... black?”, Erica questioned. “And... where are Laura’s eyebrows?”

 

“Okay, the cake was terrible, burned and salty, yeah, they mistook salt for sugar. And I think they almost made the oven explode. We couldn’t figure out how, it was absolutely fool-proof, but hey, those two had always been special snowflakes...”

 

*

 

“Oh. My. God,” the kids exclaimed while Peter laughed harder than ever.

 

“What is that.” Lydia was absolutely shocked.

 

“It’s like a car crash, you shouldn’t be watching, but you can’t turn away...”, Erica mumbled, eyes wide open.

 

“I think he kind of looks adorable--”, Stiles said quietly.

 

“Oh please, I’ve seen you make out with him when he came back from a night in the forest, sweaty, muddy and dirty, you think he is adorable all the time,” Lydia snorted.

 

“He is--”

 

“What circumstances made him do that to himself?”, Isaac asked carefully.

 

“It looks like his yearbook photo, he must’ve been seventeen or eighteen, maybe? As far as I know, he went through that rebellious stage after the fire, he did everything he could to stand out,” Peter ventured a guess.

 

“What was he rebelling against, good taste?”, Erica asked.

 

There it was, a photo of Derek with an honest to God mullet. It was the whole “business in the front, party in the back” package, like taken straight from the rave of the eighties. He’d had the same bitchface he used to display now, the same angry look in his eyes, he didn’t even smile. The photo looked like it was cut out - not very carefully, though - from somewhere, which supported Peter’s yearbook theory.

 

“Okay, enough, I’m taking that,” Stiles said, quickly leaning forward and grabbing the photo. He intended to put it in his wallet, under the other, more regular photo of Derek he’d already had there, from when Derek had to get new documents made. But they didn’t have to know that.

 

*

 

When they heard the key turn in the lock, the panic emerged. Peter ran around with the album, looking for a place to hide it, the betas jumped back and forth in sheer panic. They knew what Derek could do to them if he found out what took them the last four hours.

 

Lydia was calm, she was immune to Derek’s rage, he wouldn’t harm her in any way, and his comments just couldn’t bother her less. Stiles, in the meantime, got a brilliant idea. He leaped to the door just as they opened, grabbed Derek by the shoulders and turned him around, kissing him passionately. He even took Derek’s hand and put it under his own shirt. He looked over alpha’s shoulder and discreetly gestured the rest to get the hell out.

 

They took his advice, ran past them shouting their goodbyes. Derek paid no attention to them, not parting his lips from Stiles’. Only Lydia stayed in her chair.

 

Stiles finally broke the kiss as soon as the coast was clear.

 

“I missed you too,” Derek said, smiling. “What were you all doing here?”

 

“Oh, gossiping, playing games, the usual stuff.”

 

“You’ve literally never played games--”

 

“Hey, you’re back home, come, sit down! Watch TV! I’ll get you a drink!”, Stiles rambled on, dragging Derek to the sofa and running to the kitchen.

 

“Is he acting weird?”, he asked Lydia quietly.

 

“Always.”

 

“But, right now?”

 

“Always, honey. Always.”

 

“Right. So, you’re staying?”

 

“I don’t have to leave for the next couple of hours. And Peter ordered pizzas he’d already paid for on the internet, so I’m not missing that. Be a lamb, and yes, I did it on purpose, and tell the Speedy Gonzales on drugs over there to bring me a glass of diet coke, too.”


End file.
